Five Aphorisms

It came! It finally came! Actually it came Thursday and I finished it in one setting but I did not have a chance to write about it. Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for our Complex Lives by Gretchen Rubin. The book is full of aphorisms. According to Gretchen Rubin an aphorism is a “concise statement that contains an expansive truth” Here are some of my favorites and how they apply to my life and probably apply to yours too.

• “You sink so fast you think you’re flying”- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.  I remember one time in my life where this aphorism applied. I had returned to college after being on medical leave. I think I expected everything to just go back to normal but I felt left out with Moon Squad (it didn’t help I kept ditching them for boys) and Derrick was still giving me the silent treatment. Yet, I felt this euphoria, this grandiosity, this feeling I could do nothing wrong, even though I was hurting people (boys) right and left and didn’t really care. I was making so many bad decisions- blowing all my money on hookah, not doing my schoolwork, ignoring all the signs that something was very wrong. I felt so good, I didn’t want it to end.

• “To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two to three hobbies and they all must be real”- Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill has a lot of great quotes (he was actually my senior quote ‘You have enemies? Good that means you stood up for something sometime in your life”). I like the hobbies quote because I think hobbies are vastly underrated. I know people who have no hobbies besides watching TV and smoking pot and I don’t think that’s  healthy at all. Or interesting. 

• “Happiness doesn’t always make us feel happy”. Here are some of my examples: dieting (at this point I am pressing 200 pounds. My health is really suffering and it looks like I have sleep apnea since I snore heavily enough to wake myself up and everyone around me), exercise (any form of exercise makes it hard to breathe and make my shins feel like I am on the rack. You know, that machine where they pull your limbs), taking showers (I do always shower. But I do it with varying rates of enthusiasm), cleaning my room (when there are clothes and papers everywhere it feels like I am sabotaging myself, like I can’t breathe. Do I clean it? Well sometimes) and leaving behind attachments (to either people or to places or objects).

• “To make something more pleasant, add a quiet, wordless presence: a candle flame, a flower in a vase, a fish swimming in a bowl” My whiteboard is covered with things that make  me smile, a cartoon my best friend drew for me telling me she loved me, a Winnie the Pooh poster my ex roommate made, a million Christmas cards from my little brother, a polaroid shot of Justin and I dancing at my cousins wedding, a watercolor I made  of some cacti, and (my latest addition) a diamond art picture of sunflowers in a watering can. I think it’s the  nicest I made so far. Also adding something to a sense of smell is very enjoyable. Since open flames freak me out I use an oil diffuser. Sometimes my room smells like baby powder. 

• “We know something is important to us if it shows up in our schedule, our spending or our space” This (for me) probably boils down to writing (since I do it all the time and own a thousand journals), excitement (horror movie, amusement parks, haunted houses, anything to give me a thrill), romance/sex, my social life (I spent a bunch of money on laser tag last month and have no regrets) and crafting (don’t even let me into a Michaels!).

Want more wisdom (and not from me?). Check out Gretchen Rubin’s new book. Or any of them.